Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Excerpt IV: The Assassination of Ruth First

AFTER
A LONG WEEKEND , Ruth drove her Renault to the Center of African

Studies
office on Tuesday morning, August 17, 1982. She was wearing a red blazer she
had borrowed from Moira Forjaz, white skirt, and her favorite Italian shoes and
expected something of an easygoing day. She also planned to return to the
office late in the afternoon for a get-together honoring John Saul, who was
leaving his post in the Department of Marxism and Leninism and returning to
Canada. Joe planned to spend at least some of the day with Harold Wolpe, who was
still in Maputo, and they were all meeting Sue Rabkin and Pallo Jordan for
lunch at Moira and Ze Forjaz’s house. Accompanied by Moira, Ruth then ran some
errands for the party. She made a quick stop at home to retrieve a bottle of
wine before returning to the office.

Helena
Dolny was in her office when Ruth returned to CEA, and she recalls hearing the
clicking of Ruth’s shoes as she walked down the corridor with Aquino de
Braganca. Aquino peeked into Helena’s office and asked if she was coming to the
reception, to which she replied that she would be down shortly as she needed to
finish some work. As it happened, John Saul was late for his own party. Pallo
Jordan was in Ruth’s office with Aquino, Bridget O’Laughlin, and Ruth awaiting
the arrival of Saul and other guests. Aquino, in his halfteasingand
half-serious way, told Ruth that people might think that she was the director,
not him, because her mailbox was totally full and he got so little mail. Before
going to retrieve her letters, Ruth offered the refrain that she had repeated
many times: “Well, you know if you want to get mail from people you have to
write to them.”

When
Ruth returned, Aquino was sitting at her desk, so she stood next to it. Pallo
was adjacent to her and Bridget stood near the door. The four continued to chat
and Ruth began to open her mail. Helena Dolny, still in her office, was
startled by a large explosion. O’Laughlin, who was pregnant, heard three blasts
and saw Ruth “lying straddled on the floor, facedown and motionless. She was
not moving and lying totally
still.”Pallo Jordan, injured badly in
the bombing, holds vivid memories:

She
was reading her mail and chatting away and then suddenly there was this flash.
You know in the movies when they show explosives like that and they make
everything go into slow motion. That is how you perceive the whole situation. I
mean nothing goes into slow motion, but that is how your brain perceives it.
It’s at the end of that when you try gathering yourself together and you
realize that there was a bomb.

Jordan
suffered multiple injuries and was hospitalized for an extended period. His
left eardrum was blown out, one eye was destroyed, and he had shrapnel
throughout his body, fragments of Ruth’s bones. Ruth First was dead. She was
fifty-seven years old and had been
assassinated by the apartheid regime.

The
apartheid regime killed Ruth First because they knew that ideas are important.
They killed Ruth First because she organized an international conference that
questioned the authority and actions of the South African state. They probably
also killed Ruth because she was an easier target than Joe and the regime knew
that her murder would devastate Joe Slovo. Since the letter bomb was already in
Ruth’s mailbox during the conference, one can assume that the apartheid regime
wanted her killed during the festivities.

The
South African government also killed Ruth First because she mentored young
people in connecting ideas and actions, with the goal of democratic socialism
in South Africa. Her close friend, colleague, and comrade, Gavin Williams, summarized
it best in his 2010 speech at Rhodes University:

Ruth
First has come to be an icon of the revolutionary hero. This is to make too
much of her. It is also to make too little. There is a danger that her real
achievements, her bravery and her integrity, will be hidden behind the mirror.
Ruth combined during her life the practical politics of the movement for
liberation with commitments to investigating, researching and explaining.